Blogs - December 2010

Below are the blog entries for December 2010.

Introducing the New Cascade Server Image Editor

By Uran Piedra
Monday, December 20th, 2010 at 4:45pm

One of the pain points we often hear about is that content contributors are unable to easily make small edits to an image when uploading it for use on their website. Well as you may be aware, Hannon Hill recently released Cascade Server 6.8 for beta testing. Included in this beta is a new, native image editor.  

Cascade Server’s image editor makes simple image manipulations quick and efficient, without requiring any additional software or applications. Users are now able to easily crop, flip, rotate, resize, and undo/redo changes all from within Cascade Server. Content contributors are also afforded peace of mind from the system’s powerful version control system. Each time an image is edited and the changes are submitted, a new version of the asset is stored, thus creating a repository of saved image snapshots throughout the editing process. If the image changes are not to the desired effect, Cascade’s version control allows contributors to restore the image to its previous state.

To see the new image editor in action, check out our video demo. The 6.8 beta is available for testing in a sandbox as well as for download, so be sure to check out the image editor as well as all the other great, new features in Cascade Server 6.8!


Category

  • News

Personnel Configuration for Cascade Server

By Kat Liendgens
Thursday, December 2nd, 2010 at 2:45pm

We have often been asked, particularly by prospects, what we would consider the ideal personnel configuration for Cascade Server. While the ideal setup depends on many factors, such as the size and structure of your organization, we can certainly identify the key players for successful implementation and management of Cascade. On a high level, there are three main areas of responsibilities that need to be covered: system administration, web development, and content management.

System Administration involves installing and upgrading the software, creating backups of the database, managing permissions and accounts, and providing technical support. Web development encompasses web design, programming, and integrating new sites into Cascade Server, as well as maintaining existing ones. In addition to these more technical areas, there is also a need for content management. Content management is a broad term that encompasses tasks such as creating the information architecture, being a liaison between the technical teams and the business users, approving content, and ensuring search engine optimization. In a lot of cases, the content managers are also in charge of end user training.

We recently reached out to some of our clients who have had very successful implementations of Cascade Server in order to get their input on what they would consider the ideal personnel configuration for Cascade. In this blog, I would like to focus on a recent success story - Wentworth Institute of Technology (WIT). WIT contracted the Hannon Hill Services team for three days of Cascade Server training for their three-person web team and a 100 hour QuickStart package, which was completed in July. WIT are currently rolling out one Site every one to two weeks, much to the satisfaction of their 50 to 60 business users, who contribute  greatly to the success of the implementation.

I recently had the pleasure of talking to Karmon Runquist, Manager of Internet Technologies, Content and Design at WIT, to find out how her team approached the distribution of responsibilities while implementing Cascade Server. The web team consists of three individuals. The Designer is responsible for the look and feel of the sites - creating graphics and producing the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, etc. The Developer integrates the templates into Cascade Server, and is in charge of system administrative tasks such as upgrades and backups. Karmon Runquist, the Manager, serves as the content liaison. She is in charge of user administration, training, and overall project management. Once the team had gone through two days of training and our Services Team had completed the QuickStart integration, they began building out Sites.

According to Runquist, “Having Hannon Hill do the QuickStart for us worked very well, because it provided us with a framework and examples that we could refer to while integrating more of our sites.” During the process of implementing more and more Sites in Cascade Server, the web team at WIT noted some areas specific to their integration on which the team needed additional training. At this point, they scheduled their third day of training to go over best practices and particular problems that they were looking to solve.

Once a number of sites had been set up, the team began providing one-on-one training to individuals in charge of managing the content for their department/division. It was important to the team that the users had the opportunity to be trained on their own sites so that the training was relevant to them. “You have to empower the users,“ Runquist said. But, the idea of involving their end-users didn’t start once the CMS was implemented. In fact, WIT began incorporating end-user feedback during the selection process for their new CMS, sending out surveys to stakeholders and extending an open invitation to participate in any meetings in which the new system was discussed. “You have to make sure that your relationships internally and with your stakeholders are solid.” Runquist reiterated.

While the size of Wentworth’s web team is small, Runquist believes that they are in exactly the right place, having covered the three main areas of a successful implementation - system administration, web development, and content management - and having had tremendous success thus far. She has graciously offered to speak to anyone who has questions about WIT’s implementation approach. Please feel free to contact the Services Team if you would like to be put in touch with her. You may also check out Wentworth Institute of Technology’s new website, which was deemed a "noteworthy" site for December by EduStyle.


Category

  • Resources